How Do I Get There From Here? Planning for Retirement When the Old Rules No Longer Apply by George H. Schofield, Ph.D. talks about three overlapping stages of growth between fifty and old age. I think I’m entering the third one: new simplicity. I’m becoming impatient with some volunteer commitments and am moving away from them as quickly as I can decently do so. I’m focusing more on how I can mentor younger people and do less myself. I want to take better care of myself; more exercise and de-cluttering come to mind.

Mentoring has involved going to meetings and making facilitative comments to help the chair keep the meeting on track. It also involves providing lunches for people who are working so they can come and bitch and strategize. I’ve said “no” to chairing projects so I can say “yes” to supporting younger people chairing. And then there’s the celebrating when a younger person has finished a project.

This week I had the opportunity to tell a young woman doing a project on the Schneider Family Book Awards about their history. It felt odd to clearly be a historical figure—The Founder. Founding something for me involved stepping up to do something even though I hadn’t a clue about how to do it and recruiting people to help me who had the right expertise.

The internal struggle for me is about am I being selfish? A wise friend of mine in his eighties says it’s a balancing act between serving others and taking care of oneself and that the balance changes over the years.

As the Bob Dylan song says:

“The slow one now will later be fast

As the present now will later be past

The order is rapidly fadin’.

And the first one now will later be last

For the times they are a-changin’.”

My priorities seem to be changing toward putting more energy into fewer tasks, mentoring and a new balance of self-care and other-care. In case any of this rings a bell with you, I’m reading Finding Our Way Again by Brian Mclaren and finding it helpful. Onward!